I didn't set out to get a lot of crafty stuff on vacation, but I ended up visiting 3 yarn stores.  Michael Levine is the only one I went to on purpose.

Michael Levine is not just a yarn store.  It's actually more of a fabric store, but they have a "yarn corner" that is packed full of super nice yarn.

I was casually petting everything I saw until I got to this Nova by Tahki Yarns (discontinued).  Cotton!  Glitter thread!  Charcoal and light blue!  Must to have!

If there had been more of the Charcoal gray, I would have bought more.  Such a beautiful color!  I only bought the blue because I'm hoping I can make something with the three skeins.  I do like the two colors together.

It's a nice touch that the metallic thread is the same color as the yarn.  This one is a nice light blue.

And this one is a nice dark gray.

I didn't need these bobbins (yet!) but for $2.10, I couldn't leave without them.  I do want to do some colorwork eventually.

Right before I went into Michael Levine, I stopped in a craft shop next door and picked up these gray sequins.  I was definitely in a grey-seeking mode that day.

Last week we flew to Los Angeles for a vacation.  I don't like flying much, but I do love the knitting time on the flight ... and while waiting in the airport because we are chronically early.  

The only bad thing about the knitting time on this flight is that the flight is about 58 minutes long.  Dude, for all the hassle, I want more time to knit!

I'm  in the last bit of the body where I'm doing the final round of yarn over increases.  While it is nice to be almost done with the body, these are LOOOooooOOOONG rows.  They take soooooo long to knit.  

I refuse to add it all up or time myself, but I think there are 400-500 stitches in a row now and they take (what seems like) 30 mins each to knit.

It's like winning the lottery in slow motion.

For the 7+ years that I've written this blog, I've had a job.  For most of that time, I was a web programmer.  I loved it.  Almost 3 years ago I moved into Project Management.  I love it, too.

A couple of years ago I set a goal of earning my PMP certification.  I've been taking night and weekend classes Fall, Spring, and Summer at SFSU since 2011.  I spent the last two months studying almost every night.

Last week I took and passed the PMP Exam.

I don't know about you, but I have found life to be a big squishy mess of weirdness: things blending into other things, things slowly fizzling out unceremoniously, things being thrust upon me without warning, things happening that don't make any sense and are never explained, or amazing things that disappear into the roiling sea of life before I have a chance to savor them.

But, a handful of times, I have had things in life that are bright, sharp, clear, and celebrated.  Earning my PMP is one of those crisp, defining moments.

I'm sharing this with you because I'm so incredibly happy about it, and it's fun to share happy news.  I'm also telling you because it explains why I haven't been posting tutorials and patterns like I used to.

I still have a few more classes to take, but I will definitely have more free time in the coming months.  Honestly, I don't know what I'm going to do with it.  I have a list of ideas a mile long!  I'm so excited to see what I come up with.  Thanks for sticking around!
This is how I feel!  Andrew took this photo of me goofing around at Salton Sea.

The ninth (and last) word that Andrew gave us to interpret in embroidery for
A Collaboration was Ecstatic.

I cannot hear the word "ecstatic" without thinking of the director Werner Herzog and his concept of "ecstatic truth". This is not the "accountant's truth"  You can see him explain it to Henry Rollins (start at 1:20).

I agree with him that there is a truth that is deeper than facts.  As he said, "Facts do not illuminate."  In reference to Herzog, I chose a German font for the word "truth".


This is the last piece I created for this project.  Seeing all of these pieces makes me want to pull out the embroidery floss.  

Making these small pieces is generally quick and satisfying.  I may have to come up with a new project that involves stitching.

The eighth word that Andrew gave us to interpret in embroidery for
A Collaboration was Untitled.

I took this as permission to do whatever I wanted.  For all of the other pieces in this project, I'd been heavily relying on my Embroidery Sttch Dictionary for ideas about what stitch pattern to use (hello idea for owl brick stitch).

One stitch I kept wanting to use but hadn't had the chance to use was satin stitch.  What better than a flower to work on my satin stitch skills?  

I'm sure I found the flower pattern in one of my clip art books, though I couldn't find it a quick thumb-through of my favorites just now.



I did a little color blending in my stem.  See the darker green at the top?

On the whole, I think this flower is a bit of a fail.  The two pinks are supposed to denote the front and back of the petals, but I can't tell which part is which petal.  It's just a cacophony of shapes.  

There's some kickass satin stitch, though.  I also like the tiny yellow French knots.

The seventh word that Andrew gave us to interpret in embroidery for
A Collaboration was Moonlight.

Pretty straightforward interpretation.  I have a tattoo of the moon with clouds on my left arm (if you click that link, scroll to the bottom of the post for the photo).

I love these pearly, iridescent beads!



I used a pattern from a Japanese Pattern book for the awesome clouds.

The sixth word that Andrew gave us to interpret in embroidery for
A Collaboration was Junkyard.

For this world I went conceptual.  When I embroider (or sew or crochet or knit) I keep any potentially usable bits of floss (or fabric or yarn) together in a little box.  I even wrote a post about my workspace that featured my floss and felt bits (photo of floss bits below).

When we first got the word "junkyard" I instantly thought of my floss bits stash.  I pulled out the contents of my "floss junkyard" and started stitching three-bar-crosses.

I had a couple of rules:

• Each cross must have three colors.
• Each color needed to be used in it's own blob of space.
• Each space blob should overlap many other space blobs.
• Each color should be on the bottom, middle, and top of the crosses (not just one position).

I like the randomness and interplay of colors.  It's definitely energetic.

The fifth word that Andrew gave us to interpret in embroidery for
A Collaboration was Secrets.

For this word, I imagined how secrets feel when you're keeping them.  For me, they can feel like something living inside me ... something wild and dangerous quietly perched in my chest.

I took an anatomical drawing from a clip art book and replaced the heart with an owl.  I seriously love the brick stitch feathers on his chest.

Hey, look!  Embroidered intestines.

The fourth word that Andrew gave us to interpret in embroidery for
A Collaboration was Alphabet.

I love letters.  Well, all the letters except K.  I never liked K.  It's weird to write.  The leg and arm never seem to match up.  It's an awkward, unbalanced letter.  It's probably the only letter I have strong feelings about.  Well.  I kind of like Q.  Could we just replace K with Q?  If there isn't a U with the Q, we'd just treat it like K.  Agreed?

I went with the obvious for alphabet.  Obvious or not, I like it a bunch.

I spent forever laying out the letters in Illustrator and overlapping them in a square so they were balanced, and you could distinguish every letter.  I probably spent more time in Illustrator than I did stitching.

The third word that Andrew gave us to interpret in embroidery for
A Collaboration was Thirteen.

As a source, I used a photo that Andrew took of a fantastic tree with 13 limbs:

I used cream, green, and orange to represent the canopy of leaves ... suggestive of turning from summer to fall.  I left the trunk and branches bare, and the effect of the background stitching pushes them into the foreground.